Planning for ModeShape 4.0

That’s right – we’re thinking about ModeShape 4.0 and what it might look like. We’ve literally just created an initial plan, so it’s very early. However, please give it a read and give us your input and feedback! Below are answers to some big questions, but if you have others please contact us or add a comment to the planning document.

Why are we talking about 4.0?

There are several reasons. Firstly, we have a few deprecated methods that we’d like to remove, and we’ll almost certainly move to JCR 2.1 (aka, JSR-333) which is nearing approval. Secondly, some of the bigger changes will not be compatible with the 3.x configuration format. In particular, we’re rethinking everything about how we manage and maintain our indexes, including how they’re configured in clustered repositories. However, please note that we do not plan to change the storage format, making it much easier to upgrade from 3.x to 4.0.

What does this mean for 3.x?

We still plan to fix issues and add minor enhancements while we work on 4.0 features, and plan to release version 3.6 in roughly 6 weeks. It’s likely that we’ll even release 3.7, since 4.0 won’t be stable enough for production use by then.

Will I be able to upgrade from 3.x to 4.0?

Yes! Since the storage format won’t change, it really becomes just a software upgrade. We expect that most users will be able to easily upgrade with no changes to their application (unless they’re using methods deprecated in JCR 2.0 or ModeShape’s public API). However, many people will likely need to change their configuration files, though we’d like to make that as easy as possible. (Ideally, you may just need to remove some parts from your 3.x configuration.)